This page is an introduction to the popular family of ragas called the Malhars.

There are three points that will be covered in this post:

1. Popular view of Malhar Ragas- notably Raga Miyan Malhar- used extensively in Bollywood  and other genres
2. The “base” set of Malhar Ragas – most commonly heard
3. Further reading on obscure varieties of ragas, primarily sourced from textbooks on music

Popular View of Malhar

“Hey, did it really rain when Tansen sang Malhar raga” is the most popular question on this topic.

The answer is: No one knows. 

From Bollywood movies to Coke Studio, Malhar has inspired many popular songs and dances.  One can search the internet for many of these.

Base Set of Malhar Raagas

Before we dive into this, here is a Youtube sampler of many of the Malhar variants about to be discussed. I played this at a Facebook Live Event in June 2020